Business News sponsored by Vodacom Transformation of Work:

New appointments are often followed by a slow transitional period, but that’s not the case for Luigi D’Amico, who joined proptech specialists e4 on 1 March as Chief Operating Officer.

D’Amico already has plans that will take the company to new heights by enhancing customer experience, heightening employee contentment, and adding more value to the business for investors.

A software developer by training who has fulfilled many executive roles over the years, he has a myriad of experience in technical ecosystems, particularly in the financial sector in which e4 operates, and believes there are several high-priority initiatives that will benefit all role players in the company’s value chain.

His first order of business is to get in touch with the people who make e4 tick, from clients to employees, to see where he can add value. “I plan to lean into my IT experience to investigate tech trends and see how we can create more efficiencies for our clients - take our tech stack to a new level with even better user experiences and more features. I want to talk to our customers and get more input about their experience and solve their problems. And I’ll be visiting all e4’s branches locally and internationally soon, to facilitate collaboration and to create a great experience for them – happy employees, after all, also make for happy customers.”

D’Amico has certainly seen this principle in practice throughout his career and knows what it takes to keep both customers and employees happy. He started as one of the developers of the eFiling system that the South African Revenue Service (SARS) still uses today. After SARS bought the system, he became its operations manager for almost a decade. He then became Chief Technology Officer of another company born out of the eFiling system, this time primarily focused on Adobe and Java solutions. Several innovation awards later, he was tasked with starting up the services leg of First Technology, which was only selling products and licences at the time. His groundwork there has since blossomed into a multi-million-rand leg of the company.

Soon after, he co-founded a technology company that was acquired by EOH in 2016. This saw D’Amico become an EOH business unit executive, tasked with the challenging job of creating collaboration between all the competing merged businesses under the umbrella of the company. “I quickly became a go-to guy when there was a fire that needed putting out in many areas of the business. I headed up company culture through a tumultuous period and then the pandemic, which gave me insight into most areas of business operations.

“Now, I see myself as someone who links the two groups of people we see in the tech world – those who want to code alone in a room, and those who want to talk to clients on the golf course. That gives me unique insights I think will be invaluable as COO. In my new role, I get to pull from all my experience in sales, operations, and technology, and that’s an exciting prospect for me.”

Grant Phillips, group CEO of e4, says he’s thrilled the company has found someone who perfectly fits the bill. “Luigi’s experience in not only tech ecosystems and operations but also customer and employee experience is exactly what one wants in a COO in our industry. We’re excited to see what he achieves, and how he will help shape e4 in the future.”

D’Amico has lofty goals in this regard, starting with identifying avenues of expansion for e4. “First, I want to investigate e4’s mature stacks, proven over two decades, to identify working patterns that can be applied in other sectors locally. And then, expand even further globally. We already have operations in the UK and Namibia, alongside several branches in SA, and I believe e4’s proudly South African intellectual property can be applied in several other industries and markets worldwide.”

All this, while ensuring he spends enough time with his seven young children, will certainly keep him well occupied for the foreseeable future. And when he’s not playing cricket with his kids, you’ll find him on the touch rugby field or competing in triathlons.

Proof that the old adage certainly rings true: If you want something done, give it to a busy person.